1. In September 2014, James Levine will pace ILDAR ABDRAZAKOV as Mozart's Figaro in a season-opening new production by Richard Eyre at the METROPOLITAN OPERA. Other new Met productions in 2014–15 are the company premiere of The Death of Klinghoffer; a new staging of The Merry Widow by Tony-winner Susan Stroman, with Renée Fleming, Nathan Gunn and Broadway's Kelli O'Hara; a double bill of Tchaikovsky's Iolanta, starring Anna Netrebko and Piotr Beczala, and Bartók's Duke Bluebeard's Castle; the company premiere of La Donna del Lago, with Joyce DiDonato and Juan Diego Flórez; and a new David McVicar production of Cavalleria Rusticana and Pagliacci, starring Marcelo Álvarez, Eva-Maria Westbroek and Patricia Racette.

2. OPERA America recognized the recipients of its 2014 National Opera Trustee Recognition Awards at a dinner and reception in Manhattan on February 21. The honorees were Kenneth G. Pigott (Lyric Opera of Chicago); Michael and Noémi Neidorff (Opera Theatre of Saint Louis); Ruth W. Orth, M.D. (Pensacola Opera); and Robert L. Roschel, M.D. (OperaLancaster). Michael O'Brian (Vancouver Opera) was named by Canada's opera.ca as recipient of its National Opera Directors Recognition Award.

3. Tenor MICHAEL FABIANO has been named the recipient of the ninth annual Beverly Sills Artist Award for young singers at the Metropolitan Opera. The $50,000 award was established in 2006 by an endowment gift from Met board member Agnes Varis, who died in 2011. Fabiano was presented with the award during his run at the Met as Alfred in Die Fledermaus.

4. SAIMIR PIRGU sings the Berlioz Messe Solennelle this month in Vienna with Riccardo Muti and the Vienna Philharmonic. June finds the tenor in San Francisco, as Alfredo in La Traviata, and in Zurich, as the Duke of Mantua. In July, Pirgu makes his Ravenna Festival debut in Verdi's Requiem, with Muti conducting, before traveling to Ravinia for August performances as Don Ottavio, with James Conlon and the CSO.

5. TELDEC has released a USB flash drive containing two high-quality audio formats (uncompressed WAV and 320 kbps MP3) of Wagner's complete Ring cycle, with Daniel Barenboim conducting the forces of the Bayreuth Festival, as well as two documentary films, the librettos of all four Ring operas and seventeen original articles on the Ring. The software application on the USB flash drive also allows users to explore the leitmotifs used in the Ring through scores, extracts and descriptions that cover sixty-five of the most prominent themes.

6. RUTH GOLDEN, a leading soprano with New York City Opera from 1985 to 1991,has been appointed to the Manhattan School of Music voice faculty. Golden, who will continue in her current position as director of vocal studies at the C. W. Post campus of Long Island University, is a former faculty member at AVA in Philadelphia. Her MSM appointment begins in fall 2014.

7. Durrant Publishing has published Americans on Italo Montemezzi, a collection of essays and articles about the Italian composer, edited by David Chandler. The book contains a 1949 OPERA NEWS article by Herbert F. Peyser on L'Amore dei Tre Re.